Stainless "Oxygen" Containers

My local junkyard has a dumpster full of these things. They are about 20" from bottom to the beginning of the cone, maybe 18" in diameter (or a little more) and weigh from 15 to 30 pounds each. Do they look like kettle material? I would have to pay $1 per pound but they're all stainless and appear to have held liquid oxygen only. Whaddaya think?

They look better than the beat up kegs that I bought.

You may have to modify a burner stand to hold them level but for a small investment, it would be worth a try.

I bet you could get a reduced price if you bought the whole lot of them and then you could sell the here.:rockin:

Bull

How far is it from Colorado to Arkansas? I am on my way.........Those look sweet. I would buy up as many as you can afford. You could use them as fermenters as well.

The photos are a little tough, but you could probably sell all them for $2 a pound. How much to ship to 07719 j/k

ummmm....EFFF YAH!

I would take as many as you can afford. Im sure you can recoup most of the money

wilserbrewer said:

The photos are a little tough, but you could probably sell all them for $2 a pound. How much to ship to 07719 j/k

Click to expand...

Yeah, the photos were from my cheap cell. I'll go back tomorrow and see how many I can afford. There's quite a bit of hardware hanging on some of 'em - SS tubing and stuff. I'll see what I got in 'em and dump the extras to (maybe) recover my cost.

Ohhhh, shiny!

Anxious to see a better photo.

I can see many uses for them. I think they might be from O2 generators and as such might be insulated also. Definitely worth a closer inspection.

They're closed today, so I'll try to get 'em all Monday.

Question: If they are from O2 generators and/or are insulated - would that keep them from being useful?

Nope, I would try and cut the liner off in a way that you can reuse it with the insulation for your HLT and MLT with the BK if building a fully electric brewing system after you've added your fittings to the main internal tank. Great find.
Another member app 2 years ago posted swimming pool filters that the paint was removed and polished up the stainless with a capacity of 30 gallons each. I recall they had a rocker top and bottom. This another option also. I would grab all you can of those oxygen tanks someone will buy your extras in a heartbeat. Keep a couple spares for any future builds or modifications as they would look sharp being the same size and brand three in a row. Lucky find grab 'em. The ones I see are on the back of welding supply trucks not for my personal use. At one time I saw 11 of them at the hospital I was remodeling down in the basement storage area for over a year sitting in a room full of useless crap. I didn't ask they vanished one day, I believe someone snagged them and I have a pickup. Missed out on that one. Got 3 pony kegs from a Round Table fire job plus 20# bottles, manifolds and regulators unburnt out of the dumpster, I dumpster dive on my job sites. The pipe fitters gave me a Victor ball flow gauge with regulator free it only needed a regulator rebuild kit just for the asking. Lag you lose many times.
Scrap collecting bums in town I know will come up with many AB or other kegs but I know the AB driver and get them free off him not these stolen from bar kegs by bums. Hell I was given a Jack Daneils 15.5 keg, ya know Jack made bier? (94 to 97 only). I get the odd non AB kegs free, Lind Brewing, Full Sail. Ebay was ok the shipping kills the deal for me. Hit the local college frat houses, my friend offered $150 and got 11 kegs out of the backyard. My new neighbor found a AB keg overgrown in the thick blackberry fence stuck there from 6 years ago a freebie to me.
Sad part I saw tons of 15.5 kegs and cornys being shipped aboard at the Port of Pakland with Hong Kong or China the ships home ports. LHBS saw this and bought out suppliers then trippled the prices a instant profit off us. Grab the wifes stash money and buy all of them.

BBeemer, I'm confused. You have been a great source of info but why would you remove the insulation liner? These would work great for direct fire or electric as is. Granted bulkheads would need to be welded from the inside to protect the insulation, but removing it (if these are indeed O2 generator tanks) is escaping me. Please expand.

beerthirty said:

BBeemer, I'm confused. You have been a great source of info but why would you remove the insulation liner? These would work great for direct fire or electric as is. Granted bulkheads would need to be welded from the inside to protect the insulation, but removing it (if these are indeed O2 generator tanks) is escaping me. Please expand.

Click to expand...

http://www.chart-ind.com/litfiles/11545591.pdf

beerthirty; these are the type of insulated liquid O2 tanks we located four of for almost free ($50 all four) get the damn things out of here deal.
We ended up making two vertical cuts 180* apart allowing a clam shell to remove the insulating cover with insulation for allow cutting and welding on the inner pressure chambers. These pressure chambers were cut in half plus a stainless bottom plate added to them making eight 50 plus gallon kegs for up to 40 gallon batches planned. This for fully electrically heated brewing systems. The insulation and liners were later cut to fit after coupling holes cut then assembled using extruded aluminum "H" material for butting the liner halves back together. With 3 stainless banding straps and tool resulted in a professional factory looking job when finished plus still being fully insulated allowing for quick easy heating by the 11KW of electric elements each. This also allowed easy to maintain temps on all 8 vessels keeping the insulation from the original tanks and the costs down. Yes the tops were cut open like keggles. The only out of pocket insulation and cover materials were for the new bottom plates for these brewing vessels. Overall these worked out better than plain non insulated stainless oxygen vessels plus Even liquid nitrogen vessels that are insulated would work also but good luck locating any that are available besides on the cheap. Hope this cleared things up as I didn't want to write a novel on the reply above. Carl.

Ah...kinda like heart surgery Beemer, crack em open and do a little plumbing. Then seal em back up for function...nice!

Why do it the easy way when the price was right and we were up to the challenge? Damn project started out as a dare and came out better than we dreamed besides how fast the temps went up and held. Kicking it with 11KW or 37,532 BTU's into an insulated container really helps matters. I'm watt hungry not one to wait those 90 minute to hours come to up to temp person you should know this by my many past postings. One unit with manual toggle switching to the relay coils for the elements we were offered $2,600 for it. Second unit will be controlled by a BCS 460 unit that my partner wants, newborn comes first with him and the family.

I think that they are all insulated containers. The total weight for all 7 was 333# with the smallest being about 44#. There are 2 or 3 left, but money is tight until next Thursday. The tallest is about 30" high and the shortest is about 24" high (not including the "removable" hardware on top. Diameters run from maybe 14 to 15".

Edit: Gonna try to budget another $200 to get what's left.

thats a nice deal you got their. im shure you will have no problem selling them. the ones with the cone tops look like a micro brewery tank. what are you gonna use them for? electric build?

I would like to buy 1 or 2 of the coned bottom ones. How many gal. do U think they are?

I picked up the remaining four for a total of 11. Don't really know how many gallons the inner tank will hold, but that sounds like something to find out. I think that I'll get a weight and capacity of each one - maybe keep 'em separate by sticking a label with a number on each. Then sell most (or all) of 'em here. The truth is that I have very little aptitude for working with metal.

Each one has a domed top but some carry the dome higher.

I would be interested in manufacturer name and specs on the "chimney" brew kettle looking ones. After you get things sorted out I would love to get a price from you on one or two of those. I can arrange shipping if it works out.

In any case, thanks for doing the right thing and rescuing them from the crusher.

I don't really know what to charge for 'em - and it looks like shipping could sure be a problem. They're both large and heavy (but I don't think any weigh over 70#'s or so). They would probably have to be boxed and properly packed. One or two have small dents but they all look good considering they were tossed into a dumpster. The people at the scrap yard really wanted to know what I was going to do with 'em - maybe they could get their hands on more? At any rate, I think that our hospital scrapped out their oxygen system - some of the other stickers say "The Gas of Life". Gotta do some bottling today so I won't be able to do much before tomorrow.

If I'm not mistaken, you could bubble wrap then shrink wrap and slap a label on if the handles are exposed.

You wouldn't even have to do that, I have had plastic barrels (12 gal) shipped UPS with only the shipping label on it.

If you sell them, Id like one of them with the chimney

I'd be interested in 2-3 of these depending on price and volume, looks sweet!

ok so ive been lurking for a bit, but nonetheless count me in as interested... Im currently in SE alabama but the army will have me moving to NC not to long from now... Shipping shouldnt be too bad...

-Tsi

Anybody get an idea of the volume of these yet? Based on the figures they don't sound like they could be very large. Sure are cool looking.

OK I did some quick figures. Had to make some assumptions, but here's a couple guesses. Probably completely wrong but WTF, it's a WAG.

I figured

#1 @ 12 X 24 = 2714.7 cu in, 2714.75/231=11.75 gal
#2 @ 12 X 30 = 3393.4 cu in, 3393.4/231=14.69 gal

I may be interested in 1

OK - some more information. In Post#20, the first picture, the fourth canister from the right (all 5 on the right seem to be the same). This one didn't have any "Oxygen" stickers so it was the one that I took to UPS. It weighs 50 pounds and would cost $57.00 to ship to Kent, WA with the basic $100 of insurance. It can ship "as-is" with only a label on it. The interior "bottle" held about 14 one gallon milk jugs full of water. (Pretty good WAG!) That's what these things remind me of - a big SS Thermos bottle. I think that they may have a double wall with insulation between - or maybe vacuum? Looking down into the side port on the top you can see some very shiny metal - as shiny as foil. I poured the water into the big hole in the center.

I'm going to try to sell that first 5 of them (see description above) for $100 each plus shipping. After I sell those five I'll get involved in the others - it's kinda hard to have too many things going on at once. Anybody who wants to drive over here could save a bunch of freight money. My LHBS said they didn't know anyone in the area who might want 'em.

Oh - and Kent, WA was just a name that popped into my head. It sounds pretty far off - so that' what I used to get a "long distance ballpark".

Cool, thanks for more info. I'll be sticking to my kegs for now, but those are sweet

All but the three "chimney top" jugs are gone. I'll think about those three for awhile before deciding whether to cut 'em. Someone suggested "Electric" and that sure sounds like a winner the more I learn about it.

Cool. Sounds like everybody wins on this one. Nice job.

Nice work...I was beginning to feel that we all conned you into a boatload of stainless jugs that weren't moving...hah...good for you. As you said earlier, with your limited metal working skills, you perhaps should have bartered some containers for a build of your own.

The chimney ones look like they would make nice stills, but I know that subject is taboo here, but note that you can obtain permits for such.
I'd be potentially interested in one for use as a mash tun, they are double walled, right? Can you tell me more about the shortest one on the end of the row?

@bendavanza - Mash Tun, cough, cough, right. Lol!

I know this is an old thread...

But I have 2 of these tanks that I bought locally.
One is the conical domed top.

Has anyone used these types of tanks?
The conical dome top seems hollow to me, not insutaled.

The other tank does have an insert.

Just wondering what I have purchased and what it would be good for.

These are liquid oxygen containers. They are vacuum insulated. The origanal "Penrose Kettles" were these with tho top cut off and the "guts" discarded. The Brewhemoth is made out of scrap parts. None pictured appear to be "our brand", but they might make decent kettles. Not sure if you will find much use for the interior, I couldn't.

You are reffering to the straight wall type. I can see that mine is double walled.

But the conical shaped one does not appear to be insulated. At least by the weight of it.